


toe the line between

by Civillain



Category: One Piece
Genre: ASL Brothers, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Reincarnation, Angst, Gen, IT'S LIKE implied attempted THREATS of rape but NOT EVEN CLOSE, Rebirth, Reincarnation, doesn't happen though, implied attempted THREATS of rape, it's just creepy guy in bar tryna drug a drink
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-10-23
Updated: 2019-10-23
Packaged: 2020-12-31 20:47:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,552
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21151964
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Civillain/pseuds/Civillain
Summary: Reincarnation AUEveryone but Luffy remembers.





	toe the line between

When Rune first sets foot on the beach, he feels like his heart will burst with something he can't quite understand. His chest thrums with excitement and love and fond pride all wrapped into one, swirling up his throat and into his giggles, bubbling up into his laughter.  
It's a new feeling, a strong emotion he hasn't ever felt before, and it churns his guts— 

—but in a pleasant way.

His grandpa watches him from where he's seated at a bench, and tells him with a loud chuckle: "Go on. The water's great." He gestures at the ocean with a wave of his hand.

Rune wants to. 

He really does.

Instead, he shifts through the pebbled beach, watching grains of bright sand flow between his toes. Molten gold trickles down his legs, and he leaves small peaks and valleys in the shore as he toes the ground. He decides to draw a picture of his family, because his family has always made him happy. Even though it's only him, his grandpa, and his dad....(just him and his grandpa, really).  
He works hard for a while, drawing with the tips of his fingers and then erasing with the flat of his palm, redoing the picture over and over and over again— it's a slow process. His grandpa's face looks all wrong, his own face looks all wrong, and...his dad doesn't look like he belongs. 

The waves crash against the silken shores, and the low splashing is music to his ears.

Rune finishes the drawing.  
Somehow though, he's ended up drawing eleven other figures. He doesn't know who they are, but they're there, and he feels like they're the world to him. They have vague features, different shapes and sizes, but the outlines are fuzzy and so are the thoughts in his head.  
He can't recall (recall? he's never met them before though, has he?) anything other than the number of people in his family, nor any defining features that could stand out to him.  
Regardless, he gives all of them a smile, drawing the curves of their mouths with his pinky finger.

\---

The sun sets slowly, warping the glistening blue waves into a magnificent blend of orange and red. 

His drawings get swept away by the current, the indents in the sand melting into nothing— as though they had never been there. Only muddy water and smooth silt are left over, and the loss of his picture makes him unreasonably sad.

"Why didn't you go play in the water?", his grandpa asks him as they're walking home. Rune looks up at him, taking in the creases on his face and the wrinkles in his forehead. He's genuinely curious, Rune realizes. He's not being sarcastic.  
( though he can't shake the feeling that his grandpa already knows the answer to his own question )

He ends up telling him that he couldn't. His grandpa gives him a skeptical nod, as though conveying his disbelief, but Rune doesn't really care if he believes him or not.

No matter how much he wants to, he already knows that he can't touch the ocean.

* * *

Rune never learns how to swim. 

Grandpa signs him up for lessons at a local swimming pool, near the park with large trees and towering statues. That park has green grass and and soft flowerbeds, and whiffs of pine are always intertwined with the cool breezes that whistle through his hair. He'd rather go there, really, and that's always what he thinks about when he enters the natatorium.

His instructor greets him and the other students with a wide smile and friendly wave, but Rune doesn't ever return either one with anything other than a casual nod.  
It might be rude— but he's never been roundabout with things like this. Manners are useless in a boy with no tact. 

(The instructor smells like chlorine and chemicals, like sunscreen and plastic, and he _hates_ it. The smell burns his nose and tickles his lungs with a slimy hand, making him almost retch every time it touches his senses.  
He hates the pool for the same reason.)__

_ _"Come on in," his instructor says with the same big smile. "The water's cool, and it's real hot outside!"_ _

_ _The water's disgusting and I feel cold, Rune doesn't say._ _

_ _He gets into the pool._ _

_ _\---_ _

_ _

_ _He learns nothing._ _

__He doesn't follow any of the instructions, nor does he listen when he hears "_Kick,_ don't paddle." His instructor eyes him with disapproval every time he sags into the water, breath held and face scrunched up in disgust. "Come on, kid, kick and get to the other side." 

Rune doesn't; because he's already far away from the dirty bleach-filled pool and the icky chlorine, already entranced by thoughts of crashing waves and a salty tang on his skin.  
This water is fake, he decides, compared to the water in the sea. 

He stands by his decision when he goes home and tells Grandpa that he doesn't want to swim. 'Can't,' he says, careful not to seem like he hates water. Because he doesn't.

He just hates the pool.

Paired with the complaints of disobedience from the swimming instructor, Grandpa relents and allows him to quit the class.

* * *

Sometimes, Grandpa looks at him wistfully. He throws him glances of something like longing, and then forces his face into a big, ebullient, grin every time Rune turns to look at him. His grin is always a little too pained, a little too fake.

Rune notices, even though Grandpa doesn't think he does.

He asks, (demands) to know why, but Grandpa is tight-lipped for weeks, almost months. He changes the subject every time with a scowl, persistently refusing to speak. His silence only frustrates Rune further, but he's nothing if not terribly pushy and mulishly stubborn. (I get that from you, he tells his Grandpa with a rude tilt to his chin)

\---

One day, Rune falls face first into a rock.  
It's real stupid, him stumbling over a fat rock and losing his balance. But the jagged stone carves into his skin, and now there's a crescent shaped cut under his left eye. It hurts. 

The doctor tells him it's going to scar.

\---

The waiting room is quiet.

Grandpa stares at him for a long while, his expression undecipherable at first. But gradually, slowly—his face twists, and there's something new there. It's not quite open-mouthed shock, but there's a vague resemblance to it. Rune thinks he sees a strange layer of something hopeful draped over his grandpa's wide eyes- but dismisses the notion. There's no reason for him to be happy here, right?

"I had three other grandsons," Grandpa blurts out suddenly. He looks pained. That's no good sign.

'Had,' he said. Not 'have.'

"What happened to them?" Rune asks with no little curiosity. Logically, it shouldn't make sense. Grandpa only has one child, and that's Rune's dad. Rune is an only child. He doesn't have any siblings, any cousins, any aunts, any uncles. He has his grandpa and his dad, and that's all his family in the world.  
(but even that isn't entirely right, is it?)

"...I failed them," his grandpa says quietly. His voice is hoarse now (and Grandpa would never cry, Rune knows, but he looks real close to it). His eyes stay dry and his lips stay still, but there's a tremor in his speech that's impossible to miss.

—Rune is blunt. He has no manners, no tact, and no regard for other people's trivial feelings. He'll say what he needs to say, and there's never any cushioning or comfort involved. No sugar-coated precious words, no useless apologies or meaningless condolences.  
But he has a keen sense of emotions, and he's best at knowing those he loves. He loves his grandpa.

So he asks a better question instead, treading carefully around his grandpa's rapidly crumbling grief.

"What were they like?" he asks.  
It happens slowly, sure, but at least it does.

His grandpa's terse frown is steadily reworked into a semi-annoyed, semi-fond smile, and he says crudely: "They were hellions. Never listened and did the stupidest shit all the time. Kinda like you, honestly," and barks out a wild laugh.

The tremor in his voice isn't gone. But it isn't as shaky as before, and Rune laughs with him.

* * *

Rune grows up with a wide grin and smiling eyes. He's rude in a bluntly innocent way, never mean- just loud and brutally honest. He calls teachers out on topics he doesn't agree with, faces down people who find it fun to mock others, and makes his way through his childhood with startling ease.  
His schoolmates love him.

His teachers hate him.  
It's not a good school.

They never talk to him with anything other than scowls and disapproving frowns, always nagging and grumpy. His grades suck, his participation in his classes is naught, and everything academic-wise goes terribly for him.  
The school is rampant with bullies and corrupt teachers, who favor the rich and stick their noses up at the poor. There is racism, sexism, and homophobia in spades. The occasional good teacher is swept away by the bigotry, and the students are left with the remnants of what could have been.  
Sometimes, even if the children in his age-group love him, there're always the older kids who look at him with something akin to distaste and displeasure.

But Rune doesn't really mind. He tells his teachers exactly what he thinks of them, no mirth in his tone.  
(world government, something whispers to him, those in power rarely use it wisely)

Grandpa always laughs it off boisterously, waving away the teacher's complaints with a sharp leer, all teeth and no humor. ("He's free," he tells them. "And it's got nothing to do with how stupid he is, don't worry about that. You'll find that he isn't all talk, y'know.")

* * *

His dad comes to visit sometimes. 

Relations between his only family (only family?) are tense, but only because they make it so. Rune thinks they're being pretty stupid, in all honesty.

The three of them sit around the kitchen table, eating quietly—and isn't that a weird experience— but the silence doesn't last long. Grandpa makes an angry comment about his dad's inability to stay put in one place, his dad retorts with a biting remark on Grandpa's parenting skills, and then the insults eventually evolve into a full-on shouting match.

It ends with Grandpa storming outside, punching the wall with anger on his way out. 

The plaster actually dents a little, and Rune watches him go.

His dad starts doing the dishes. Only out of some sort of messed up compliance, probably, but it doesn't really matter. Rune cautiously walks over to his side, watching the soapy suds slide down the porcelain plates, eventually melting into the dirty water. Those are like the arguments his family like to have. They argue and argue but they never reach a conclusion. Instead, everything goes down the drain, and nothing ever gets resolved—it just vanishes, because they pretend it never happened, and then they start all over again.  
He says so out loud.

His dad turns to look at him, a small frown on his face. And then his face freezes, just like Grandpa's had two months ago at the doctor's place.

"Is that so...." he says, before trailing off, face more open than it's ever been, and Rune fidgets when he realizes how intently his dad looks at his face. _Really_ looks at him. For the first time the entire day. (not sneaky side-glances or little peeks that he thinks Rune doesn't catch)__

_ _Or more specifically, how he looks at the new scar under his eye._ _

_ _

_ _They stand facing each other like that for what feels like hours. Rune opens and closes his mouth to say something several times, but never does— he's never really known how to act with a dad who's never really been his dad. His usual confidence does nothing to help him here, and he finds himself wishing for Grandpa to come back, to make an interruption.  
His grandpa doesn't come back into the room for a while._ _

_ _"Yeah." Rune says a little too loudly, just to break the silence, and he scowls a little when he hears how his voice echoes through the kitchen. "—you and Grandpa are always so angry."_ _

_ _And then he tries for a smile, drawing his lips back and flashing his teeth. It's a bit forced, but he feels like that fits the mood perfectly anyways._ _

_ _

_ _The plate in his dad's hand shatters on the floor._ _

_ _\---_ _

_ _

_ _"I'm sorry," his dad says quietly. _ _

_ _They're picking up the shards of the broken plate, kneeling under the counter and hunting for the remnants they must've missed._ _

_ _Rune gets the feeling he isn't apologizing for the broken tableware. _ _

_ _"It's okay," he says nevertheless, just as quietly. The atmosphere is tense, and they tip-toe around each other like strangers._ _

_ _

_ _\---_ _

_ _

_ _His dad leaves without another word, and Grandpa finally comes back. _ _

_ _

_ _\---_ _

_ _There's a note in the hood of his sweatshirt, stained with ink blots and crumpled with folds and creases. The post-it's sticky side has already been covered with fuzzy lint, so the paper flutters out and lands on his pillow when Rune rolls over onto his bed._ _

_ _'<strike>Luffy,</strike> Rune, your name means secret. In case you didn't know._ _

_ _I'm sorry.'_ _

_ _That's all it says._ _

__He doesn't know who this Luffy is, but the note is from his dad. He sticks it inside a book (which he's never read) and jams the paperback under the frame of his mattress. Grandpa wouldn't want him to keep the note, so he better hide it. He's never known too much about his dad, and doesn't particularly care at his point— but family is family._  
(_no it's not, something whispers in the back of his mind—_your family is_—) __  
  
  
"I don't want any secrets," Rune tells no-one.  
Or maybe he's talking to his dad.

* * *

Grandpa only ever hits him once.

A fit of rage is probably what it was, hinted at from the weeks previous.

Grandpa gets rougher with him over time, the hands ruffling his hair moving with more force, his boisterous laughs getting louder, and there's always the friendly shoves that go just a little too far. It escalates real quick, even though Rune never sees it coming.

\---

It happens when they're both seething after a particularly bad shouting match, where Grandpa finds the note under his mattress.

_ I don't want you becoming that kind of person, _ Grandpa yells.

Rune yells something back in the heat of the moment.  
It's probably something bad.

\---

Head still ringing and mind still spinning, Rune crumples against the wall and stays there, eyes blown wide with shock.

\---  
Grandpa rears back in some sort of terror, and he clenches his fists in distress— he's acting as though he had expected something else to happen. "Lu.." he begins— but then trails off with a stricken look on his face. He backs up into the arm of the chair, keeping his distance and looking paler than Rune's ever seen. "I..."

Rune doesn't hear the rest— he falls unconscious.  
-

This is the day 'Grandpa' becomes 'his grandfather,' and it takes a week until Rune stops flinching whenever he gets too close.

-

...He gets a mild concussion from the blow. That's what the doctor says. This is the same doctor that had told him his cut would scar.  
Then the doctor asks how he got the wound on his head, and Rune tells him that he fell down, hard. It's a half-truth. Careless mistake, he whispers under his breath. 

His grandfather doesn't meet either of their eyes.

\---

Rune's always been quick to forgive, and so everything goes back to normal within another three days. As normal as they can be, anyway, a dysfunctional family (that's incomplete) with a raucous grandfather and a disobedient grandchild.

He continues to smile cheekily in response to his grandpa's silly rages, teasingly saying stupid things in an attempt to piss him off, and they laugh together with all the present's thrill between them. 

But...  
Something's changed, even with each passing day's normalcy. The wistful look in Grandpa's eyes is back, (grandpa again, not grandfather- except neither of those really seem right) and there's always a sort of hollow emptiness in the way they interact. He tries to fix it to no avail.  
That emptiness stays for a while yet.

* * *

As Rune grows up, he finds that it's harder to keep a place in society with his bluntness and lack of tact.

His smiles to his classmates start becoming more and more fake, his speech more formal and awkwardly friendly, and his boldness slowly dwindles. He finds that he no longer knows how he's supposed to act.

At night, lying awake in bed, he sometimes wonders to himself: where's my personality gone?

* * *

The two of them move to a new city.

It's filled with a lot more people than their previous one had had, and the streets are always bustling with people and cars and loud trucks. Pigeons, too.  
Rune likes it, even if the ocean is far away now.

He's walking along the sidewalk, absentmindedly making his way through the crowds. Some people shove him on accident, but he just brushes off their rushed apologies with a small nod. He doesn't have time to care about manners, after all. There's supposed to be a park behind the next building over. He can feed the pigeons there.

"Ah!"  
Rune jerks upright, eyes widened. Something knocks into him from behind.

"Oh, sorry!" a voice calls out in his ear. There's a hand on his shoulder, and a bit of weight presses on his forearm. Then the hand tightens into a stronger grip, and "—huh?" Rune begins to say, spinning around to look into dark, dark, eyes—

And then the guy in front of him dies.  
\---

He ends up dragging the body into a nearby cafe, ignoring the bewildered stares of those around him. They aren't really reacting, nor are they doing anything to try to stop him, so he figures it's all good. He laughs off one of the concerned questions from a waitress, side-steps the other people gathering around him, and staggers unsteadily towards a table set.

The cafe's mostly empty right now, so it's just him and the body and the waiters and waitresses.

Him and the guy and the waiters, he corrects himself mentally.. ..because the man wakes up with refreshed eyes and a big smile. The freckles on his face stand out in the yellow glow of the ceiling-lights, and his messy waves of hair bounce as he gets up. (where has he seen this person before?)

"Sorry about that!" the man exclaims, leaping to his feet, eyes closed in a blinding grin, "I must've fallen asleep, this isn't the street anymore!"

To Rune's bemusement, the guy tumbles around with his eyes still closed and then trips over an upturned chair. 

"It's all good." he says in reply, and then makes to leave. 

His heart hurts, and he doesn't know why.

\---

He doesn't make it far. 

Rune barely touches the knob of the cafe door when there's a hand on his shoulder, and long fingers digging into his collarbone. The sudden pressure makes him jerk to the left and nearly crash into the wall.  
"Hey!" he hisses, whirling around to knock the hand off him.  
His eyes meet those of the newly awakened man, and (they're dark and warm and _dead_) suddenly— __  
—suddenly, he barely manages to stifle a sob down in his throat.

"L-let go," he chokes out, even though he doesn't know why his chest aches so much, "—l-let go of me." He tugs weakly at the hand, but to no avail. The grip on his shoulder only gets tighter and tighter and tighter.  
"Uhngh," he keens, gagging on his own tears. 

The other guy looks down at him with a strange fervor, searching his face almost hungrily. 

_"Luffy,"_ the man breathes out, looking as though something unbelievably miraculous had just happened. His eyes are shining.  
Nothing good did happen, though. Rune's trapped against the door of a cafe a hair's breadth from a breakdown, and there's a strange man (not a stranger, something tells him, this isn't a stranger) rendering him immobile with nothing but a look and a hand on the shoulder.

"No wonder I fell asleep, it's you, it's really you.."

"Let go," Rune repeats himself again, swallowing the lump growing in his throat. His face feels wet and there's fat droplets hitting the ground, but he just wants to get away. 

Away from whoever this is.

"Lu.." the man says, voice cracking. "I- I can't believe it, you're fin-ally, I've finally f-found you, I've been searching everywhe—"

He gets cut off when Rune shoves him aside with a curled fist. The door swings shut after Rune runs out.

\---

"I...followed you home," the man says semi-sheepishly. "Sorry." There's no guilt on his face though, only a desperate sort of excitement, so the sentiment's lost on Rune. 

And in all honesty, he'd try to sock the guy in the nose were he not struggling to breathe over his tears.

"Go awa-aay," he wails at the door, rivers of water running down his face. He doesn't even care how stupid he looks anymore, with all the ridiculousness of the situation. The rain's been pouring, and late evening's already gone by. The sun's set and everything.  
The man makes a low noise in his throat, soaked to the bone— and somehow still manages to pull off the kicked-puppy look. 

"No way," he says in a plaintive tone, "I'm still in shock right now so you can't tell me what to do. Once I'm good again, you are coming with me and I'm probably gonna cry- but only barely- and you'll cry even more because you're a crybaby. And if you live here alone- so help me, I'll-"

Rune doesn't ever get to find out what "he'll," because Grandpa comes tumbling down the stairs with a loud 'CRASH.'

"WHO FOLLOWED YOU HOME," Grandpa roars. His face is flushed red like he had just run a mile in a woolen sweater.

"ME," the man hollers back. His hair is wet and plastered to his forehead, and it makes him look like the creature from the 'Grudge.'

There's a pause after that, the two of them staring at each other in shocked disbelief. Eyes widened and hands trembling, Grandpa whispers, "Ace?"

Rune frowns. Is that the guy's name? Ace- or whatever his name is, whispers back, "Shitty old man," with awe. Blinking and a little taken aback, Rune leans on the wall for support. That's real rude...especially when addressing his grandpa.

There's a moment of silence, and the air nears discomforting cold....before they run at each screaming expletives, arms raised and shrieked curse-words flinging everywhere.

Rune runs upstairs when they start exchanging fists. Grandpa's the strongest he knows anyways, and he'd be damned if he lost. 

(he runs because he can't stop the tears, actually, but he'd never admit that)

(Rune never does get to see the aftermath; the tearful hug and reconciliations. He doesn't get to see the hushed discussions his grandpa and the man have about him, either, or the frozen despair on the man's face when he hears: _"He doesn't remember."_)

* * *

Five months pass in the blink of an eye.

* * *

.

.

.

.

Ace slurps at his drink with a long "spppppplt". The straw comes back out of his mouth with teeth marks all over it.

Smacking his lips with a small frown, he jostles his drink and then slams it down onto the table, leaving a wet imprint from the remnants of condensation.

"...I haven't told Sabo." he says with a semi-horrified, semi-constipated scowl.

Rune blinks. 

"Told who what?" he asks.

Ace slams his drink down onto the table again, loudly, startling nearby patrons sitting around them in the coffee shop. ("Shhh!" someone hushes them.)

"Shit. He's gonna kill me."

"Who and why?" Rune asks, slightly more irritably. 

Ace then basically throws his cup at the table, making the loudest smacking noise yet. A baby starts crying in the background, and the mother's dirty glare burns into Ace's head. Ace doesn't even notice.

"Sabo..." he mutters darkly, and then lightens up, hair puffing up a little as he bounces up in his seat.  
"Ahah!" he exclaims with glee in his eyes, "I'm stronger than him though, he won't even be able to touch me!"

Then he triumphantly rams his drink onto the table again. Rune swipes at it, and Ace barely manages to keep it safe by holding it out of reach.  
"Stop it," he hisses at Rune, balancing his drink with the palm of his hand. "It's gonna tip over!"

"Then let it tip!" Rune growls back, smacking him on the forearm, "-you're so noisy!"

"No I'm not! I'm just talking to you, I haven't done anything wrong!"

"That lady over there literally just gave you the stink-eye, her baby's crying because of your stupid dramatics-"

"How do you even know that word?"

"What word, dramatics? I know it because I learned it out of necessity after you moved into my house you actual- "

Ace leaps over the table to grab at him, and Rune sweeps his feet out from under him at the exact same time. 

The table flips over and a chair gets knocked halfway across the room.  
So do the both of them.

Ace's precious fancy carbonated water, of course, does not survive.

\---

"You got us kicked ouut," Ace bemoans.

"Me?!" Rune scowls incredulously, "-me?!"

\---

"Alright," Rune says as nastily as he can, "you're gunna tell me who this Sabo is right now, or else."

He has Ace pinned against the closet door, one hand on the side of his head and the other on his own hips. 

Ace snickers against his own palm, looking like he's trying his hardest not to laugh every time he looks down at Rune's face. Sticking out his tongue and crossing his eyes, he says just as nastily, "Never."

Rune raises his eyebrows as high as they'll go, trying for the 'my eyebrows are extraterrestrial' look, and says, "Tell me."

He raises his knee threateningly and then points between Ace's legs.

"What the hell," Ace says, also doing the eyebrow thing, "-there's no way you would."

Rune does an eyebrow wiggle.  
Ace wiggles back, but with his fists.

\---

They're collapsed on the bed, still breathless from laughing. 

"You still suck at fighting," Ace laughs under his breath. He's sprawled across Rune's legs, lying horizontally with his right arm on Rune's chest.

"I'll beat you someday," Rune harrumphs, picking up a pillow and burying his face into it. "These aren't even real fights anyway, it's just you pinning me to the ground before I can even fight back."

"That's still a fiiight," Ace teases, and then sniggers into the carpet when Rune turns over and kicks him off the bed.  
They stay in comfortable silence for a while like that, Rune sighing contentedly into his cushion while Ace complains about his lying on the ground with whiny groans.

"Lemme back on the bed." Ace says.

"No," he gets as a reply.

"I'll tell you all about Sabo if you do..." he offers, and then instantly gets an extended hand in his face. He chortles happily, before grabbing the offered limb and pulling himself up onto the bed. Obviously, Rune goes down. Gravity and all that.

"Ghmphm," Rune grumbles from the floor, face still buried in the pillow. 

\---

"Sabo's overseas right now." Ace says for what must be the 70th time. He sounds real sad about it.

"Okay," Rune groans, rolling over exasperatedly. "You've told me that already. That still tells me nothing about who he is? Like I mean, why does he need to know about me?"

Ace mutters something unintelligible. His feet kick against Rune's back.

Rune wrinkles his nose at his lack of reply, smacking Ace on the head lightly. Ace turns his head and rams his forehead into Rune's chest, but Rune pushes him off with a snort.  
"Oooh," he then says slowly, a devious smirk on his face, "I get it."

"Get what." Ace says stupidly.  
Like always, of course.

Rune makes an exaggerated kissy face, puckering his lips- his best duckface- (he ignores Ace's "Gah!") and whispers, "He's your boyfriend, isn't he."

...

Ace's look of pure horror will be etched into his mind forever.

"Aaand," Rune continues, determined to add insult to injury, "I bet you're cheating on him. With me. *That's* why you're so worried."

Ace makes a garbled choking noise, eyes wide in distress.

"When's he visiting, anyway? I'll tell him allll about the way you cried everywhere for no reason after you met me, and then he'll laugh at you and then he'll break up with you because you're cheeeeating-"  
Rune's mouth is abruptly covered by Ace's palm. Shakily, and with a tremor in his voice, Ace says: "Don't. I don't think I can handle anything more you say. I'm gonna throw up, oh god, oh ew, my brother just implied me doing incest with my other brother and then implied incest with me and him and ew-"

"...We don't live in Alabama," Rune tells him pointedly after he shoves the hand off his face. "And he's your brother? I'm your brother?"

Ace still looks constipated, so Rune gets no reply out of him. 

"Well?" Rune prompts, waving two fingers in front of Ace's eyes, "-Aren't you gunna answer? When's he coming here anyway? Why does he need to know about me? You know I was joking, right? Don't take that seriously, seriously."

"I...I won't." Ace says, visibly gulping his disgust down. 

Satisfied to finally get a response, Rune sits back down and kicks his feet into the air. One foot whacks Ace's head on accident, but Rune doesn't apologize. "You still haven't told me the rest though. Why does he need to know about me? You have a brother? I'm your brother?"

"No.. he's..," Ace swallows again, fingers hooking into his shirt collar. "He's in on an internship and so he'll be gone for another few months. After that, though, he'll be back...and he'll come find me, of course. I mean, originally, I was gonna go with him. But then his boss told me that his son moved to my area, and that his business trip would be moving somewhere that I wouldn't be able to easily reach. So Sabo told me to search for you. We've been looking for so long, y'know, but in all the wrong places."  
He huffs out a chuckle.

"And- wait. How do *you* know about all that boyfriend girlfriend stuff?" Ace asks quickly, his mouth rapidly twisting into a frown.

Rune doesn't answer his question, making a discontented noise instead while looking rather peeved.

"Why were you looking for me?"  
The mood isn't as warm as before anymore. Ace seems to pick up on that, because his shoulders tense a little. 

"Does it have anything to do with why you cried for a week after meeting me?" Rune asks.

He sees a brief flash of something like guilt pass through Ace's eyes, but it vanishes in half a second.

"You cried way more, y'know. Like double the amount." Ace dodges the question, but Rune keeps his mouth terse in a grimace. That's the truth, sure, and he still hasn't lost the pang he feels in his chest when he looks at Ace- but he wants answers.

"Does it. Or does it not?"  
There's a draft coming in from the open window. That's probably why Ace shivers.

"N-Yeah, Lu- Rune, but it's not like that. I'm not hiding anything from you, I just- I- ah," Ace collapses in on himself, rolling off the bed-sheets and onto the floor. "Ahrghgh," he groans. "I don't even know where to start."

"Start with what you're hiding from me, maybe." 

Ace whines grumpily, tugging at the carpet. "I already told you, it's not like that. I swear, I'll explain everything once Sabo's here, alright?"

With no response from Rune, Ace groans again. "Ruuuuune." 

"...Ruuune."

Rune scowls, crossing his arms and glaring up at the ceiling with a pinched mouth. "Fine," he says reluctantly, "I'll wait till then. How long?"

Ace stiffens.

"...three months or so. At the very least."

"ACE."

* * *

Sabo, in fact, does not come in three months. 

He comes within a week, and Rune's left staring at a strangely fancy man standing awkwardly in the doorway.

"...hi," he manages, averting his eyes from the painfully elegant tuxedo. Oh man, that top hat.

There's a name-tag on the breast of the suit that reads 'SABO,' with a small smiley-face next to it, so Rune is only assuming that this is Sabo. If he isn't, then he's just made a stupid mistake, opening the door to a stranger.

"Hi.....Sabo right?" Rune hasn't managed to look him in the eyes yet, and so he just focuses on the hat. It looks great, actually.

'Sabo' -- at least Rune assumes he's Sabo-- makes a wheezing noise akin to a dying donkey.

"Okay." Rune says. He's expected this reaction anyways, to an extent. A friend of Ace's- no, a brother of Ace's- would be just as stupidly weird as he.

"Wanna come in?" he asks with all the manners Ace has forced into him. Ah yes, manners. Which he definitely has.

Sabo wheezes again.

\---

"So," Sabo says gravely, voice still a little crackly from crying, "-lemme get this straight. You didn't contact me, didn't say anything, didn't even _text_ until yesterday, because you wanted to keep Luffy to yourself?!"__  
  
"...It's not like that," Ace insists. "There's more to it, I swear."

"Hey, Ace." Sabo whispers.

"What?" Ace whispers back, voice high and somewhat nervous.

"My name's Rune," Rune feels the need to point out. (his gut tells him that that isn't right, but he ignores it- just like he usually does)

"...Rune?" Sabo says slowly, as though tasting the word on his tongue. He's still straddling Ace and noogie-ing him into the floor, but he looks at Rune with a pensive look in his eyes.

"How's that pronounced?" he asks over Ace's shrieks of rage. 

Rune frowns a little, unsure of how to respond. "I guess it could be pronounced any way? No one's ever really asked about that."

Both Ace and Sabo pause in their scuffle, barely managing to avoid knocking over Garp's precious wood worked shelf in their haste to sit back up. "Any way, huh?"

"Yeah, I guess." 

"O-okay," Sabo murmurs. 

\---

"Lu," Sabo decides. "I'm calling you Lu from now on."

"Me too!" Ace tacks on. Sabo tells him to shut up.

Rune eyes them both suspiciously, eyebrows furrowed in thought. "Lu?" he says questioningly.

"Yeah, it's like a nickname," Sabo explains while simultaneously boxing Ace's head in, "Short for Rune, y'know? I think it fits you better," he adds the last part under his breath.

"Why does it suit me better? My dad said my name means secret."

"Exactly!" Sabo exclaims, now fighting to get out from underneath Ace, who had gained the upper-hand sometime earlier. "You can't keep a secret to save your life!"

"You met me three days ago," Rune tells him pointedly. 

"It's a gut feeling," Sabo says very quickly. He immediately goes under, pinned to the carpet by Ace's elbow. 

"Aha!" Ace crows victoriously, "I've won again!"

\---

"Does the new name have anything to do with how Ace always called me 'Lu' before? Always sounded like it was on accident, too."

"No." Ace says instantly.  
"Probably." Sabo says.

Sabo goes down again, for the third time that day. 

\---  
Lu. It sounds half-right.  
More right than 'Rune,' at least. He accepts it easily.

Gramps looks delighted when he informs him, but it's masked quickly by a gruff grunt and a dig at Sabo's intelligence.

(Lu catches his grandpa smiling to himself whenever he thinks Lu isn't looking)  
\---

Rune, or as newly dubbed, Lu, crosses his arms and looks down at Ace and Sabo with disapproving eyes.  
"Well." he says. "What do you have to say for yourselves?"

The two of them look up at him from where they're kneeling on the ground. Huddled together and a little cowed, the two of them shrug helplessly. "This is so weird," Sabo tells Ace, looking slightly lost.  
"You're telling me," Ace shoots back, "I can barely believe it either. This- Luf-Lu acts so put together, y'know? Half the time I'm expecting him to break half the house in the mornings when he tries to make cereal."

"Oi," Lu says, a tad peeved.  
"You haven't seen yourself half-blind and struggling to pour milk into a bowl without a bowl. Don't 'oi' me."

"..oi." Lu says again, albeit a little more uncertainly.

Sabo pipes up with a "I can imagine, y'know. Remember the time when he just went for the bear and then got swallowed? We had to go fish'im out. Oh! And the crocodiles! And the hippos! Ahh those were the tim-" Sabo gets cut off when Ace tackles him to the floor. 

Lu doesn't even bother being suspicious at those words. Ace and Sabo have already been through this exact argument, verbatim, two times that morning anyways.

"What did we talk about last week, huh? Huh?! He doesn't remember, dumbass!" Ace hisses at Sabo, his hand clasped over the other's mouth. 

"Iffphergott!" Sabo yells back, his voice muffled by Ace's hand.

Ace cuffs Sabo's ear, and Sabo lands a hit on Ace's sternum.  
Lu blinks at them blearily. He barely manages to keep his eyelids from drooping.

When they start rolling around, Ace's back ends up knocking into one of Gramp's other..shelves. A trophy topples over and whacks Sabo on the head. Hard.  
The loud crash echoes through the room, and both Ace and Lu look down at Sabo's prone body tentatively. "Is..he dead?" Ace asks semi-seriously.  
Lu closes his eyes.

.  
"Huh?" Sabo groans, sitting up from where he had been sprawled on the ground, defeated by a block of metal:  
"Who am I? Who are you?"

"FUCK YOU SABO NOT AGAIN," Ace swears, deciding that the best course of action is to slap the cluelessness out of Sabo's face, "WE AREN'T DOING THIS AGAIN, YOU ASSHOLE."

\---

"The...trophy." Lu says blankly. "This..this is the entire reason I sat you down to talk in the first place. You know how Gramps is, you assholes, you've broken *two* of them now, ("yeah Sabo," Ace sneers, "-why's your head so hard, huh? This is all because of your fat skull.") what're you gonna do when he comes ho-"

"I'M HOME!" slides into their ears with all the grace of an overweight rhinoceros.

"You're dealing with this." Ace tells Sabo immediately.

"Huh? What?" Sabo says stupidly.

"Don't worry," Ace stage-whispers to Lu, "the shit-old man will beat this amnesia crap outta him."

...Lu doesn't doubt it.

* * *

Sabo moves in.

Lu doesn't get the explanations they owe him, but with each passing day, he minds less and less.  
(He loves the two of them more and more anyways.)

* * *

"This makes us brothers."

"Ace, you're 18 and I'm 18 and Lu's 15. We can't drink."

"Sabo?! Sabo, what the hell? You know how this goes, how could you say that?!"

"...Lu's grampa might get arrested for letting us drink while we're underage."

"Okay."

"Okay?!"

\---

Lu wakes up to the sharp scent of alcohol and something liquidy sliding down his throat.

"WHAT THE HELL," he splutters, barely managing to gasp out short breaths of air.

"This makes us brothers," Ace says solemnly, holding out three cups. There's a sake bottle nearby on the drawer, no doubt stolen from Gramp's stash. Ace'll probably get away with it. He's good at stuff like that.  
Two of the cups are already empty, and Lu can guess where some of that stuff's gone. Down his throat. That's where.

Sabo snores loudly in the bed next to them, blanket kicked down to the floor. Lu doesn't bother trying to wake him up.  
"Brothers, huh?" he says. His mind's woozy and he's still mostly asleep, so he doesn't manage much more than that. He probably doesn't need to, since his alarm clock reads 3:23.

"Yeah," Ace says, and Lu can make out the fond smile on his face. "We're brothers now. Like I said before- except fully official." Lu nods drowsily, his head collapsing back onto his pillow. He can worry about this tomorrow.

The last thing he sees before he falls asleep is Ace pouring the third cup down into Sabo's gaping mouth.

* * *

"You're transferring to a new school?! Why?!" Ace gripes, tugging at Lu's mess of hair. 

"Ow! Stop pulling- yeah, Gramps moved me to a new one. Why d'you care so much? S'not like we're moving to somewhere else, it's just a school change." 

"But it's such a long walk! Why would you want to transfer?"

"I didn't *want* to, I had to! There's apparently something going on with the school board and Gramps, and I have to transfer there."

"...I'm going to go to the university near your school then."

"How are you gonna decide that so easily? Did you even apply? Since when did you care about school?"

"I don't! And..I didn't yet. But I'm going to that one."

"...Sabo too?"

"Yeah. Sabo too."

* * *

"My name's Lu." he tells the class.

A couple people nod at him, some friendly and grinning with welcome. Most of them don't even spare him a glance; too busy doing their own things.

"The name on the roster reads 'Rune,'" his teacher tells him with a small frown. She seems like the strict kind-of teacher, but Lu doesn't feel like she'd be a bad one.

"It's a nickname!" he says cheerily, flashing her a big smile.

"I-oh, goodness, I see then." the teacher fumbles a little, seemingly a little disoriented. "Okay then, Rune- Lu, sorry, I'll get accustomed to that. Have a seat next to the first window, please."

"Thanks." he says, and makes his way over to the two only empty seats in the classroom. He sits down in the one next to the window, and drops his bag down beside him. The sunlight gleams down through the window's shutters, and Lu can see the flecks of dust drifting about.  
Then he remembers Ace telling him about human skin cells, and pointedly avoids looking at the sun-rays as best as he can.

Ah...Ace sucks. 

\---

"I'm so sorry, Mrs.! I was late again because I overslept, I swear it won't happen again."

The teacher sighs exasperatedly, a hand on her forehead and the other on her grading papers. Her foot taps against the ground irritably, and her heels make a 'clack-clack' sound. "This is the fourth time this month." she says. "Be careful."

"Yes, thank you!" the boy exclaims, and then turns around and runs for the seat next to Lu.

He has bright pink hair, pushed back by a flowery bandanna and glasses on his head. It fits him, somehow, Lu thinks absently, as the boy runs around nervously and trips over his own two feet.  
He lands on the floor with an 'oomph,' and there's a couple chuckles around the classroom. None of those chuckles are demeaning or hurtful though- the boy laughs with them, and it's an innocent kind of humor. Humor without any kind of mean-spirited layer underneath.

That's why Rune doesn't do anything but make his way over to him and offer a hand. 

"Hey," he says with a close-eyed smile, "need help getting up?"

He hears the boy's breath stutter.  
(there's a stutter in his own lungs too, but he thinks nothing of it)

"Luffy," the boy breathes out reverently. 

That name again.

Face frozen, Lu slowly withdraws his hand and shoves it into the pockets of his trousers.  
The name always makes him feel weak in the knees; and he never gets to know why. It isn't fair, how many secrets are kept from him. 

Lu opens his eyes, with a some effort, and flashes the boy an awkward grin. "It's..ah, Lu. Close, though!" (nonono it's not that isn't right fix this)  
"Lu?" the boy asks, now more confused.

"Yeah, sorry. You're probably mistaking me for someone else." (he's not)

The kid sitting closest to the both of them snickers against the crook of his elbow, grinning with teasing mirth. "Oh?" he says lightly. "Is this the 'Luffy' you always talk about?" His eyes are meaner than his demeanor. This is not good. 

"Huh?"  
The boy flushes, turning away from them both. He looks uncomfortable, and Lu feels like he's made him insecure. "No, sorry, I must've gotten the wrong person, it was stupid of me to think that I could ever find him agai-"

"Coby."

The name is out of his mouth before he even registers it himself.  
"Coby." he says again, but slower. The name is familiar, somehow, and it fills the front of his head like the ocean's water filling the holes in the sand. (that's because there are holes, but whether they're in his head or his heart remains to be seen)

Lu draws back, leaning against his own desk. Out of the corner of his eye, he can see the interest in their interaction peaking around them, other students not-so-subtly eavesdropping. It's...disconcerting.

"Who's Coby?" the kid laughs, interrupting Lu's train of thoughts, lifting his head up from where it had been buried in his arms. "And wow, I thought this Luffy was your hero? How could you go around mistaking random people for him?" His tone warps into something outright derisive, and his half-smile is lopsided and fake when he looks at the pink-haired boy.  
This is not a friend.

"I..." Lu begins to say something before faltering, his frown turning into a grimace. "Are you Coby?" He directs the question to the pink-haired boy, who stares up at him with wide, wide, eyes. There's the briefest flinch, but no words are spoken.  
The boy doesn't respond to him verbally at all. 

Instead, Lu watches with mild horror as his eyes well up with tears, a glistening sheen of water trickling down his cheeks. Did he make him cry?

"What's with that?" the kid still at his seat laughs out loud. "Are you seriously crying? Don't tell me, you're so disappointed that this isn't your precious 'Luffy?' Oh man, this is kinda sad, no offense—"

"Shut it." Lu says quietly. 

The kid's mouth snaps shut.

Lu kneels down to meet the pink-haired boy's eyes face-to face. It's really awkward, with the whole class watching them now, not even bothering to hide their curiosity. Lu figures that this 'Luffy' must be an important topic in the classroom. 

"Hey..."

He's about to say something comforting, maybe like 'Hey, you alright?' or 'I'm sorry I made you cry, is there anything I can do?' or even possibly 'Don't cry, it'll be alright.' Every single one of those is learned from countless practice in a society that does not favor the tactless.

But he is just that, and that may never be fixed.

"...quit crying, crybaby."  
—is what he says instead.

There's a beat, before the bewilderment in the air turns palpable, and the meaner kid from earlier peers down at him from over his desk incredulously. "Seriously?" he says to Lu. "You tell me to shut up and then tell call him a crybaby? Gee, poor guy."

Lu ignores him. 

The boy's tears immediately stop flowing, although he doesn't quit his sniffling.  
(this is Coby, something tells him. This is Coby, and he is your friend)

"Coby.." he begins, not even bothering to think about what he's saying, "—what did I tell you? You're so dumb, always crying and crying and saying 'impossible, impossible,' and I hate people like that, remember? Crybaby," he says blankly. 

He doesn't even try to control the flow of his words, this time, even though he really has no idea what he's saying. He finds that he doesn't really mind, though, when the boy's (coby) face lights up and he lets out a bright peal of laughter.  
He doesn't really mind, either, when the boy leaps towards him and pulls him into a crushing hug. 

And if he feels the dampness slowly seeping onto his shoulder, or the quiet, hitched, sobs that echo in his ears, he doesn't comment this time.

* * *

  
  
"So," Ace drawls quietly, "—you've brought a boy home. Lu."

Sabo stands next to him, arms crossed and chin tilted imperiously. "And he has pink hair, no less. How unseemly." The two idiots are blocking the doorway.

"Are—are we really doing this?" Lu asks incredulously. He feels his eyebrow twitch, and whether it's from irritation or stress he can't really tell.  
From behind him, Coby tugs weakly on the hem of his shirt and chuckles nervously, fiddling around with his fingers. 

"It's fine, Luf- Lu, I get that I'm not welcome, I was a marine, after all."

"A /marine?/" Ace shouts, aghast. "You brought a marine to our household?! For shame, Lu." He poses dramatically, one hand on his forehead and the other on Sabo's shoulder, as though that one hand is the only pillar keeping him from collapsing to the ground. 

"A marine...?" Lu questions, spinning around to face Coby. "You were a marine? How does that make sense, how are you even old enough?"

Coby bites his lip, flushing a bit. "I- I'm fourteen, and no- I didn't mean—"

"OKAY." Ace suddenly says loudly. "You, come on in here, and Sabo," he pokes Sabo in the forehead, "—you stay out here and deal with Lu."

"Inside?" Coby asks, shrinking back from where Ace grabs at him. "Deal with me?" Lu asks simultaneously.

"Yes, inside! Now get in!" Ace glowers.

.  
.  
.

"I..." Sabo begins, looking significantly more uneasy; but Lu just shakes his head.  
.  
.  
.  
Coby comes back out looking suspiciously like a mixture of relieved, disappointed, and terrified.

"What'd you say to him." Lu demands. Ace doesn't respond with anything but a cheeky wink. "That's for me to know and you to find out!" he declares in a sing-song voice. Lu wants to hit him.

"Ace told him that you'll never like him." Sabo says with a snicker, fanning his face with his sleeve. Ace slaps him.

"No he didn't!" Coby squeaks, and he waves his hands frantically. "He just warned me about Gar- your grandfather!"

"Gramps?" Lu asks. "Why would Gramps go after you? It's not like he's-"

Ace collapses face first onto the ground. 

Sabo stands over him, hand still outstretched in a fist.  
"I swear, it wasn't me this time." Sabo insists. 

Coby shrieks.

* * *

"Oh..he has narcolepsy?"

"Yeah."

"So he just fell asleep, right? He didn't die?"

"Mhm."

"Oh, thank goodness! I was worried, even if he was a pira—"

"Coby!"

"Right, sorry!"

"It's fine. Lu's already inside, let's head on in. We were just joking earlier, don't worry."

"Oh—okay, thank you! Should...should I help you drag him in?"

"...uh, should I?"

"...wait, are you really just going to leave him here on the porch?!"

"...excuse me?! Wait, how long is he just going to be lying here?!"  


* * *

  



End file.
